YouSaid · the spoken record

Todd McFarlane

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189
first
2022-12-16
most recent
2022-12-16
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1
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podcast

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  1. “Came to my door and they all gave their presentation. Some of them were pretty elaborate. They had prototypes and everything. And I just felt. The end of it, I just go, I don't think they get it. What I heard was they're going to do traditional toys and put them in traditional places and market them in traditional ways, which basically meant they were going to put spawn next to Teletubbies and all their Disney products. And I thought it was a recipe for failure. And oh, by the way, if I gave it to them and it failed, then when it didn't work, which I thought it wouldn't, they would hand me my brand back and it would be tainted. How do I then pick up those pieces when people go, ah, it failed last time, Todd? Why would we want now to dust it off and try it again? So I never felt like I could get what I wanted. And so you have to then ask the next question.”

    2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  2. “Come on in. Come on in. I don't care how you got here. I am not discriminating on a fan because the bigger your army is, the collective whole, the better chance you have of then sending out your message for the next thing that you're about to do and it might work. So those were the four pillars. One of the pillars, and to go through them real quick, I made a deal with the video games. I made the deal with HBO, and we'll get back to that on the TV. Newline cinema, we made the deal with the movie. And then we got to the toys. And all the Fortra 500, the public companies.”

    2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  3. “I mean, just for me, just for me. Again, right. My foundation, we're going to be. video games, TV, movies, and toys. Because I felt that if you could get your brand into those four corners, and again, because I was playing in the comic book world, then I could branch out into these areas and plant some corners and get people to go, oh, and it's work because I know people who've say I know spawn from HBO, not because they've read the comics or bought the toys. They saw it on HBO or wherever. I don't really care. Let me just tell you, Tim, I don't really care. My attitude is building a business. You build a house. That's your business. And you put as many doors on your house as possible. And you make sure they're all unlocked all the time. I don't care how they get into the house. I don't care how they come to the party. It's party central inside the house, right? I don't care. If they go, Todd, man, I saw you did that music video. I don't care. Doors open. Come on in.”

    2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  4. “A bunch of them didn't follow up with their phone calls after I sort of put their nose in the product. All they saw was that Spawn was ahead of Spider-Man and Batman and Superman. So it must be super awesome, right? That was it. That was all their homework was at that point. Here's what I had in the back of my mind when we left Marvel comic books and we helped start image comics. I wanted to build a foundation because I feel that metaphorically if you can build a strong foundation just like in the real world, you can put a skyscraper on a strong foundation. How do we know? Because they exist. So the foundation to me was, could I do movies, TV, video games, and toys? Those were the four. Those were the four cornerstones.”

    2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  5. “Yeah, do you know he's from the pit of hell, right? Like, and you could just, there's a hesitation, right? So I go, why don't you take a couple of the issues from this character from the pit of hell? Go read a couple and then decide whether you want to do pillowcases for kids that are five years old, right?”

    2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  6. “Spawn one to the top of the chart, set sales records at the top of the chart. And I'm not saying for independent comic books, I'm saying top of the charts for comic books. It was ahead of every Marvel and every DC comic book. And so you can imagine when you have something at the top of a chart, then people in other industries come around and they start knocking on your door. And so people were coming and knocking on my door going, oh my God, Spawn, is at the top of the chart. You want to do pajamas and pillowcases and toothbrushes and all these what they call ancillary merchandising. And so all those phone calls were coming. Now, I gently said, no, no, no, no. I understand you want to do pillowcases, but do you know, have you read a spong comic book? It was like, well, no, but we see it's number one. So do you know that he...”

    2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  7. “In all honesty, Tim, they're a bit scattered. So let's see if we can go through them real fast, right? Let's just talk first about how the toys come to be real quickly. We start image comics. We talked about that in the last show. Image comics, the third largest comic book company in North America. Marvel DC, and then Image Comics. If you ask who's three, that's us for 30 years in a row. And because of that, when we came out in 1992, that was when we first came out. And Spawn came out in 1992. We're celebrating the 30th anniversary of both those this year.”

    2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  8. “And so you see that with a lot of comedians that come from Canada and actors come from Canada that we just. And so I stand sort of had a little bit of Canadian in him where he was just like, enjoy it while you can. You don't know if it's going to be here tomorrow, like your health.”

    2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  9. “Fortunate, that's okay. I mean, at my end, I think there's a little bit of Canadiana in it. I was born in Canada. I saw people like Steve Nash and Wayne Gretzky, my big personal hero, act like gentlemen, even though they were superstars. And I think part of it is, and maybe overstating it. But, you know, when you're from Canada, you know that the Big Brother is America. And that's where all of the big action is. And if you can get any attention and you can even infiltrate down there, you always are sort of looking over your flank going, eventually you're going to see that they can just pick one of their own. They don't need us.”

    2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  10. “I think Stan comes from the school of those of us who believe our 15 minutes of fame is just about over every day we wake up. We always think tomorrow is the day where they're going to understand that we're imposters and that there's way more important people that are more skilled that have more to say. And all of a sudden you go to your next show or you go to your next, and there's another group of people and you go, wow, I guess it's going to last one more day. And you keep going. And you're thankful for it, right? Again, at some point, once you know that you're”

    2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  11. “sort of doing a classic masterclass and how to use a word more than once it just happened to be that word so maybe someday that that audio will come out”

    2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  12. “Of how you can use that word as a noun, a pronoun, an adjective, and gave examples of all them. It was like a school teacher.”

    2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  13. “We're about to go on stage, but he's still just goofing around. Someday I'll release it that is arguably the best piece of video I have from Stan because he was a very kind polite gentleman in terms of his language, if you will, when he was up on stage. And I have the one where I record it where he goes, Todd, can I tell you something? Again, out of the blue. Can I tell you something? Yeah, just stand, say whatever you want. Do you know what the most flexible word is in the English dictionary that has the most ways you can use it? And I went, no, Stan. Fuck. And I went, what? Like, I had never, I don't even think I ever heard him even say, damn, up to this point. I've been around him a lot. It sort of shocked me, right?”

    2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  14. “You're saying, I've been seeing this commercial. He's got short hair. You cut his hair? And he's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I cut his hair. It's like this weird thing where I've got this big blade and I've got bad eyesight and they're pinning him down. And I'm going, oh my gosh, that's the coolest thing. And then I just went, oh, man, if we only had like a pair of scissors, we could reenact that. And he goes, I'll get a pair of scissors taught, and he actually went and found a pair of scissors. And then he literally reenacted. I videotaped it where I'm Thor and they're holding me down and he's saying his lines and he's like going, he's doing all of it. So he”

    2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  15. “Stan Lee presents Mastad. Of course. I tell you another little silly story. We were in the trailer, again, the equivalent of a grain room waiting to go up on stage. And I was sitting with Stan and they were talking about him doing his cameos. He'd done three or four cameos in a row. And I went, oh, yeah. And I don't really go to the Marvel movie. So the next one coming up was Thor. And it was, the commercials were running. And I kept seeing the commercial. And he had short hair. Thor had short hair. And to me, I'm like, what? Thor's got long hair. That's weird. And so anyways, I'm talking to Stan. We're in the trailer. And I go, oh, you got to do some more cameos. Oh, yeah. And the Thor. What did you do in the Thor one? And he goes, let me think. I don't remember. Oh, yeah. I think I was the barber. And I went, what? He goes, yeah, I do the same where I'm the barber. And I go, so what do you do? He goes, I cut Thor's hair. Hold X then.”

    2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  16. “I haven't climbed the mountain of a lot of others. But if all the celebrity I've been around and all the time I spent, if I was to pick one person to write the book, how to interact with your fans, by far Stan Lee's the guy who would do the how to do it.”

    2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  17. “I remember Dozens of times of him being in the green room as we're getting ready to go up on stage or something. And he would turn to me and it would just be him and I. And he would go, Tod Isn't this wonderful? Isn't this great? I'm having a great time this weekend. He goes, who would have thought guys like you and I'm nobody's and look at this. We're having the best time. And so what I'm saying is that the reason he was able to summon that energy is because he was getting as much out of the audience as they were getting out of him. It was chicken noodle for his soul when he went to the shows. which is why when his wife was sick, Joni, she said, don't stop going to the shows even after I'm gone. Don't. You need it, right? And he, to his credit, he did. He kept going. But yeah, he liked being there. And so it wasn't a put-on. And like I said, I've been around a lot of celebrities and I think in all honesty, Tim, of all the celebrities I've been around, obviously.”

    2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  18. “I'll comment on two things. Number one, the stan that was on stage was the same man off stage. It wasn't a put-on. It wasn't a put-on. I mean, I've got recordings. You usually let me record him. And he'd be in the taxi and pick me up at the airport and the whole drive from the airport to the hotel, he'd be like, why is Todd here? I don't like it when the good looking guys are here. He's taking too much, and he would just do this whole thing where he was just like, you know, jabbing me the whole drive. Because, you know, we did a lot of it up on stage. So again, it was important.”

    2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  19. “Immortal to us that we never acknowledged that he was in his 90s. We just thought he was like some 50 year old guy with a lot of energy.”

    2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  20. “You're just being energetic. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I'm saying 93. He got up there. You throw him a question and he just went at 93. He was at the top of his game, 94. He passed away at 95. He was still at the top of his game on stage. And part of it was he was so...”

    2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  21. “Todd, I can't see, I can't hear. I can't go to shows. And Joni, which is his wife, and Joni's not here. I just want to be with Joni. Because she only had his two things was he had the love of his life, his wife, almost married 70 years, those two people, 70 years. And when she left, you can imagine he lost his soulmate. And then the only thing he had left was the conventions. And once his hearing and his eyesight went completely, he couldn't go to that. Both the things that were sort of important to him left. And he sort of broke down at the end. Here's the thing. We're talking about a guy who up till the age of 93 was doing cartwheels up on stage. We never allowed him to be old.”

    2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  22. “But he walked up there, and when he said those words, it was a dagger in my heart. And we did our interview. We took the selfie. We walked off stage. And that was the last time he was ever on stage. He shortly passed away. And I kicked myself because you have a couple of regrets. That was one that I wish we knew that was going to be the last time that he was going to be on a stage in his lifetime because we would have sent him off with a better applause than we did that day. But like I said, I was fortunate even after he stopped going to shows. I was one of the few people that was allowed to be in this house because there was infighting amongst some fifthoms around him, especially like I said, once his wife went away. But the last time I went and saw him. I go, hey, Stan, how are you doing? And he said.”

    2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  23. “He was already old, and I saw it when he arrived that he looked as old as I ever saw him. Anyways, we did our interview. I always used to take these selfies. I got all these cool pictures of me and him taking selfies because he never understood what a selfie was. So he's always like right jammed his face jammed into the lens. I got these cool, awesome photos. Also, in the green room, before we went up, he used to take a nap because he was in his 90s. He used to pay himself. So I've got all these cool pictures of me making faces around him while he's napping. I'm going to put a whole book out. It's going to be nap time with Stan. I'm going to publish something.”

    2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  24. “There's a photo that to me is one of the dearest photos that I have in my collection outside of my family. It was we were in Phoenix, which is where I live, and we were doing our thing. It was a little small convention here. And we were up on stage. This is post his wife passing away. And so that mattered in his life because I was there. I got to bring him up on stage when he, you know, got his Hollywood walk of fame star and, you know, at the Chinese man theater, right? I was sort of like his guy to bring him up on stage. So I was there for a couple important moments of him. And I'd gone up on stage with him so many times. He had so much energy. And as we walked up the stairs at that one at Phoenix, he turned to me and said, Todd, you do most of the talk and I don't want to be here. It was the first time ever that I didn't hear enthusiasm out of that man.”

    2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  25. “And Stan was in the middle, and I usually sit next to him, but I go, No, Stan, this is your gig. I'm going to be over here on the podium just talking. We start doing our thing. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And next thing you know, I'm talking and I'm sort of not paying attention because I'm looking at the audience. And then I turn and Stan is literally six inches on my flank. And then I look up at the screen because the screen wasn't mobile. The camera was fixed. The stage was empty because he had scooted so far over. So I look at him under my breath, go, Stan, you're off screen. You're not on TV. All the people in the back, he goes, Todd, I can't hear a damn thing. I can't hear a damn. So eventually he got, let me tell you, eventually he got a hearing aid. And like all of a sudden, the heavens opened up and he was like, oh my God, Todd, I should have done this years ago. So even once he got the hearing aid, we still did our shtick doing it and to the point where...”

    2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  26. “so that he could hear. Now it came to a crescendo one time where we were in San Diego and he was up on stage. And you know, it was a big room of probably 5,000 people. And you know, they put up the big giant screen so the people at the very back can at least look at the video, right? The video screen.”

    2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  27. “Travel with me and come with me around the country, and you and I, let's team up. Now, gracious offer, Stan, I've got a day job, right? So I can't, I can't, I mean, I understand Batman. You would like me to be your rob, and then it's very complimentary, but I've got to do it. But I said, when I can. I will. So I did. From that point on, I did. I've probably been up on stage with Stan more than any human being on the planet. We had this little shtick, and part of it was at the beginning because literally, Tim, he could not hear. He could not hear. So what he needed was somebody who could hear And then turn and slightly give them the question or frame it in a way that made sense for a comic book guy, where a lot of times moderators didn't know the comic book sort of lingo. We just sort of had this weird kabuki dance we were doing.”

    2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  28. “Is I'm walking around the Vegas hotel and I see Stan, and he goes, Todd, Todd, hold us up. Hold up, hold up. And he comes running over and he goes, oh my God, you were wonderful last night. You were amazing last night. And I went, no, no, no, you said that. You said that to me, Stan. And he goes, no, I didn't. I can't hear anymore. I didn't hear a damn thing you said last night. But what they do is that they record it and then I go to my room and then I can actually put on the headphones and then I heard it. It was wonderful because he had just figured out how to be in public with bad hearing and pull it.”

    2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  29. “Movie premiere, and they did it in Vegas. Somebody phones me up and says, hey, Todd, can you come and be the MC of that thing? There's going to be a dinner or whatever else. And I went, yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. So I come, I get up there, I say all the gracious and true things about Stanley that I believed. And everything goes cool. And at the end, Stan comes up to me and says, hey, thanks, thanks, young man. That was quite wonderful. Now, I'm like, oh, thanks. Appreciate you having me, Stan. The next day, and here's where it happens. The next day.”

    2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  30. “They are the reason we exist. And part of it was looking at people like Stanley. I've never been put off by people wanting to ask questions or whatever else. And I've had reporters ask me, especially during the whole, you know, before comic books were sort of a cool hip thing. You know, Todd, what's the dumbest question people ask? Is it like Treky conventions? Here's the answer. There is no dumb question. You know why? Because whoever is asking it, it's important to them. And if it's important to them, it's important for me to answer it. So even if the question may seem silly to you because they want to know who would win the Hulk or Thor in the fight, it's important to that individual. So I'm going to give them as good an answer as I can and I'm not going to look down my nose at them like you are. Anyways, Stan is involved in a cameo when the first Iron Man movie comes out. And the studio of Paramount says, hey, we're going to give Stan his own.”

    2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  31. “Best 20 seconds of Stan's day, even though he was given it to every single person. It was really a, and I saw this when I was 16, when I was sitting with them for the first time, but I just kept becoming more and more aware of this is how you treat the public. Because the public without them, without the fans, we have no careers. We are basically self-indulging in our basements, right? You can have ideas, but if nobody is consuming them, I go to shows and people go, Todd, why do you say thank you to me? We should be thanking you. It's like, you give me money. Every product you buy, you give me money. You put food on my family's table. If you get something out of me, cool. But I must thank you too, because I have a career because of your existence, which is why it's odd, Tim, that I've run into enough celebrities, whether it's sports, music, movies, TV, whatever it is.”

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  32. “That's exactly what he was. And let me also say he was very, very generous in terms of encouraging us, even though he knew that our books were going to be in direct competition with Marvel. Because again, he was a creative guy and haven't been around Than as much as I have been his superpower to me besides he created all these characters that none of us will ever come close to. I mean, I got Spawn. He's got like 100 spawns. And I saw it over and over and over and all the times I was with him within 20 seconds because you have, when you have a big lineup and people are coming for autographs, you literally have 20 seconds with each individual. And he would make people feel important, special, and unique in that 20 seconds. And then he would reset for the next person and he would do it all over again for thousands of people, right? They felt like that was the”

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  33. “No, because Stan was very entrepreneurial himself. So at this point, he was doing, you know, he was almost an ambassador for Marvel at this point and doing his own. So the interviews and the videotapes were sort of under an umbrella that was part of his own camp.”

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  34. “Most of them are up on YouTube. They were just, you know, Stan and I sitting there, and he did it with a couple of my other fellow artists. And you just sat at a table and you talked art or you drew and you were talking through your drawing. How do you create characters? Why does that guy look like that? And it was just sort of almost a how do you do it sort of videos that were there.”

    2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  35. “With questions. Now, again, he didn't have a big giant lineup because, like I said, he hadn't hit his celebrity status that would come decades later. But just that he just said, here, sit next to me. You got questions. And so when I went home to Canada, that was one of the moments where I went, yeah, I'm going to really drive and do this. My next encounter with him now fast forward. I actually do break into comics. I climb the rank and file that you and I talked about in our first interview. I even get to do Spider-Man, which is sort of the corporate icon of Marvel Comics. That puts me on the map and I set sales records with those books. And then a bunch of us quit and we start image comics. And I end up doing like a series of videos with Stan in 1992, 1993 and sort of rekindling a professional relationship.”

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  36. “Right next to him, and he said, Sit down, son. Ask me what you want. And he let me sit next to him for about five hours peppering.”

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  37. “Canadian kid in Florida going to a baseball camp. And I happen to stay overnight before we were going to catch a plane, go back home and a holiday in. And there was a sign that said down the hall, there was a comic book convention. I go down the hall. And Stan Lee, again, he's not the famous celebrity at this point. We're talking now about the mid-70s. Stan Lee was there. And to me, he was like the Pope because Anybody who's ever read any Marvel comic books at the top of every Marvel comic books at that time said Stanley presents. He was in every book Stanley presents. Every comic book I got. So I'm like, wow, there's Stanley Lee, the guy who presents every Marvel comic book. I walked up to him. I wanted to break into comics. And I asked him, hey, Mr. Lee, is it okay if I ask you a couple questions? And without hesitation, he pulled a cherry.”

    2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  38. “But that his characters had Stan was a comic book guy for a lot of years and then eventually moved out to California in the 70s. And odd as it is, really sort of became a big time celebrity. So most people don't begin a new career when they're 85. Stan did. And he did it. So my quick meeting with him, first time I meet him, I'm about 16, 17 years old.”

    2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  39. “Probably most people have been paying attention to movies already know who Stan is, but Stan is sort of the grandfather of being one of the co-creators of all the superhero characters that we all know by name. So if we go back when Marvel first began in the early 60s, he was a writer and he helped create characters like the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, Iron Man, the Hulk, Dr. Strange, Black Panther, and the X-Men and on and on and on and on. And so, you know, to put it in perspective, really, when he passed away a few years back, and I think a lot of people sort of said the same thing. You put him in the same category as somebody like Walt Disney in terms of the global impact that his characters had, not necessarily him as a person.”

    2022-12-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT